Fine!" muttered Mogget. "Wet, cold, and full of holes. Another fun day on the river.

Charity is a very labour-intensive virtue.

Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.

No mother, no father, no Sight.

I think there is a kind of laconic Australian leg-pulling sense of humor that is certainly in some of my stories, or is an element in some of my books, and that's probably a direct result of where I've grown up. But other than that I don't draw particularly on the Australian landscape or the Australian biology and so on. So I don't think there's anything you could point to and say is particularly Australian.

Since being a prisoner was a definite improvement over being dead, which was what she thought was going to happen when the Loundergs had attacked, Suzy was quite cheerful.

I 'ad a toy when I was little,' said Suzy. She frowned for a moment, then added, 'Can't remember what it was. It moved and made me laugh.